The present invention relates to an automated system for feeding production and/or packing material from a store onto manufacturing lines.
In particular, the present invention relates to an automated system for feeding wrapping material (reels of paper and/or transparent material or stacks of preformed cardboard) onto manufacturing and/or packing lines (conveniently cigarette manufacturing and packing lines).
Manufacturing lines are known to comprise a number of operating machines, at least some of which must be supplied periodically with production and/or packing material for the products manufactured on the line. As providing a specific store for each operating machine involves a number of drawbacks, e.g. cluttering up the area in the vicinity of the machine, hindering supply to the various machine stores and, in the event of supply from each store to the respective machine being automated, considerable installation cost due to each machine having its own automatic loading system, a number of automated systems have been proposed for feeding the said production and/or packing material onto the said manufacturing lines.
Such systems, however, may involve a number of drawbacks in terms of supply capacity and flexibility, particularly in cases where the line is supplied with a fairly wide range of materials, or when the storage area is located a fairly long distance, e.g. even as far as a kilometer, from the manufacturing line area.